


The Unnamed

by cosmicwoosan



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Clubbing, Happy Ending, Hook-Up, Hybrids, Insecurity, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Making Out, Mystical Creatures, Polyamory, Rimming, Smut, Snowballing, Spit As Lube, Strangers to Lovers, Threesome - M/M/M, Train Style Fucking, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24673096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicwoosan/pseuds/cosmicwoosan
Summary: For the majority of his adolescence, Yunho avoids two things: water and his reflection. He can't bear to see the blue and green where tan is supposed to be, so he keeps his showers short and hands deep in his pockets.After discovering a strange note at school, he comes to find out that there is more to love than just his scales, that there is more than one place to belong, and that out of all the names he could possibly be called, there is only one that truly captures what (and who) he is.
Relationships: Choi San/Jeong Yunho, Choi San/Jeong Yunho/Jung Wooyoung, Choi San/Jung Wooyoung, Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 8
Kudos: 228





	The Unnamed

**Author's Note:**

> sooo i was listening to a song and this scenario popped into my head so i wrote it!
> 
> mood music: this side of paradise by hayley kiyoko

Under the stream of cold water, it doesn’t take long for Yunho’s skin to scale over.

From tan human skin blossoms blue and green scales that start at his fingertips and crawl up his forearm. Through gritted teeth, he grabs onto his right arm and squeezes tightly, suffocating the scales before they can reach his bicep. In response, the scales on his left stop as well, leaving him with scales from his hands to his elbows.

_Disgusting._

He doesn’t even know why he bothers showering. Being the creature he is, what’s the point of cleansing his skin when all it does is burst into fish-like scales? He’s a fucking freak. He doesn’t know why he bothers.

He doesn’t belong in a house like this. His parents are normal; at least, he’s pretty sure they are.

Then why the hell is he like _this_?

With every muscle taut, he rinses his hair. The spread of the scales slow to the point where he’s able to wash the shampoo and conditioner out of his head before the scales reach his knees. After years of having to deal with this, he’s picked up on a few methods of how to stop the scales from spreading, but no matter what he does, they always surface under any sort of water.

_Keep your muscles tight. Clench your jaw. Think about how much of a freak you are._

He steps out of the shower where he’s greeted with his reflection in the mirror. Patches of scales have broken past the skin of his neck, trailing up to his cheek where line resembling a slash cuts right through his eye. Blue and green appear there, too.

The eye that the gash encases has begun to turn yellow.

“No no _no_ ,” Yunho mutters to himself, shaking his head as he claws at the scales on his arm. “Go away, go away…”

The thing is, they do go away, but it takes time. When his skin seems to scar over, close up, return to _normal._ The patches and gashes seal themselves shut, and his scales disappear. It takes several minutes, and in that time, he vigorously rubs the towel over every affected area, until the normal skin is red and irritated and his entire body is itchy.

He’s breathing hard when the last of the scales finally go away, his yellow eye back to brown. With his hands gripping the edge of the sink, he scowls at his reflection as tears appear in the whites of his eyes, and he can’t help but laugh ironically at the fact that his own tears don’t cause the scales to surface.

☾

Just one more week, and he’ll be free, for the most part.

He’ll be free from walking down hallways pretending to be someone he isn’t. Constantly surrounded by his peers, _normal_ peers. He won’t have to shove his hands in his pockets whenever he leaves the restroom after washing his hands just to hide the few scales that pop up. He’ll be away from the immaturity of teenagers who laugh at every little flaw they can find.

If they found his, he’d be outcasted in seconds.

There is the issue of university, but at least he’ll have a little more freedom there. Until then, he’ll keep his mouth shut and his muscles tight.

In between periods, he’s hanging out by the windows across from his next classroom when his skin begins to tingle. Similar to the feeling of his scales arising, a strange chill flows over his skin.

“I’ll see you later, okay?” his friend says.

“Yeah, okay!” Yunho sends him off with a grin that instantly disappears once his friends lose sight of him. He turns in the direction of the invisible breeze, to his right, where a bulletin board is littered with flyers and notices.

Frowning, he approaches the board cautiously, turning his head from left to right as incoherent whispers echo in his ears. He can’t tell what they’re saying.

There’s a blank piece of paper smack dab in the middle of the board. _Peculiar_ , Yunho thinks. Confounded, he lifts the blank piece of paper where another blank piece that was seemingly tucked under falls out.

As soon as Yunho picks it up, the skin on his forearm sizzles. He winces, clenching his fist on instinct, when he notices black ink manifesting on the piece of blank white paper.

_If you are reading this, you know what you are._

Yunho’s mouth drops open.

_Bring this note to XXXXX. You will be granted entrance._

In place of the X’s, an address spells itself out as the text seems to burn away, leaving wisps of smoke in its wake.

Panicked, Yunho shoves the note deep into the pocket of his pants, where he can feel his thighs itching where it lies.

☾

When Yunho searches up the address, it ends up being a convenience store twenty minutes from his house. Friday night, he tells his parents that he’s going out with his friends, when in reality, he’s catching a cab down to the convenience store at nine o’clock at night.

The note continues to sizzle in his pocket.

After paying the driver, Yunho steps out into the frigid winter air. It’s a fairly populated area, a part of town that Yunho has only driven by before. Surrounding the small convenience store are masses of other buildings that make it seem even smaller. It’s a bit out of place, Yunho thinks.

When he walks in, an electronic bell chimes. Perched in the corner is a security camera and its monitors. Aisles of snacks and other unhealthy food choices line the way. It’s no different from any convenience store Yunho’s been to.

“Can I help you with anything, sir?” the man behind the counter asks.

He’s _enormous_ , Yunho thinks. Yunho’s a pretty tall guy, but this man surpasses even him. The man’s bald head would touch the ceiling if he were to stand on his tip toes. Tattoos and other markings are etched into his skin, covering nearly every inch of it, from depictions of dragons and serpentine creatures to flowers and fairies.

The scrap of paper in Yunho’s pocket is beginning to weigh him down. Approaching the counter carefully, he reaches into his pocket and clutches the note, slowly raising it to show the man. “H-here,” Yunho says. The man eyes his hand with a raised eyebrow. “I-I found this note at school, and it… said to come here—”

When the man reaches out to take it from him, the paper bursts into flames. Yunho audibly gasps, jumping back slightly, while the man only lets out a haughty laugh.

“You must be new,” the man says with a nod of some sort of approval. With heavy footsteps that clunk against the tiles, he steps out from behind the counter and gestures with his head. “Follow me.”

A nervous sweat breaks out on Yunho’s forehead as he both reluctantly and eagerly follows the gigantic man towards the back of the store, where a metal door that reads ‘Employees Only’ opens before them.

It just… opens.

Yunho then finds himself standing right before a steep descending staircase that seemingly leads to nowhere. “Go,” the man says. Though his voice is raspy and deep, it’s genuine, _kind_ even. “You’ll find your answer down there.”

_Answers?_

Yunho turns to look at the man one more time before beginning his trek down the stairs, clinging onto the railing for dear life as he goes down. The light from the convenience disappears with the sound of the door behind him slamming, and all of a sudden, he’s left in pitch blackness.

Yunho can feel his entire body caked in sweat, trembling as his slow, wary steps continue forward, and he can’t help but wonder what the _hell_ is going on. Maybe he’s just that desperate for “answers,” but he knows that there’s no going back. Not when he’s reached the final step and all he can rely on is walking forward.

Thankfully, the hallway he travels down is a straight shot, and at some point, Yunho starts to hear music. It’s muffled, like it would be outside of a club, and the vibrations of EDM beats penetrate the ground, bumping up Yunho’s sneakers.

Intrigued, he reaches a point in the hallway where a sliver of light shines through a rectangular shape. A door, he realizes. The music grows clearer the closer he becomes.

With trembling fingertips, he pushes the door and is met with a beaded curtain, its jewels reflecting the orange and red lights overhead. At first glance, there’s not much else he can see, until he pushes past the curtain as well and is greeted with a fantastical yet horrific sight.

As soon as he’s inside, _something_ meanders past him. His eyes remained trained on it because what the fuck, its skin is gray and it has a horn coming out of its forehead. But from the back, it looks like a perfectly normal guy, dressed in all black with black hair. Just… gray skin.

But as Yunho continues to look around, he notices that almost everyone in this place has some sort of… feature. What would he even call them? People? Things? Creatures? Whatever the case, they walk around so casually, like there isn’t anything sticking out of their heads or any appendages trailing behind them.

“Oh, sorry, dear,” a woman says after accidentally bumping into him. Her eyes are wide, pupils blown to the point where they basically take up the entirety of the whites. Her nose is squished in, brown hair done up in braids, and there are two majestic antlers protruding from her temples. “Oh? Are you new?” she asks.

“I… yes? I think?”

She titters, raising her hand to her mouth, when Yunho realizes it’s a fucking hoof. “You must be. You look too normal.” And with that, she stalks off, and Yunho notices a perky tail coming out of her backside.

She’s right, Yunho realizes as he continues to walk forward. Everywhere he looks, he sees such inhuman features, ranging from animalistic to magical characteristics. Tails, antlers, ears, fur… scales.

A black-haired man rests with his head upon a white-haired man’s lap, his face entirely made up of rich green scales. The white-haired man has two foxlike ears in place of what would be human ones, and he holds a martini glass between his clawed fingers. Smiling endearingly at the scaled man, he holds the glass right above the serpentine man’s mouth, and out rolls a split tongue that reaches all the way past his chin as the drink pours into his mouth.

Yunho’s jaw drops at the gruesome yet fascinating sight.

“Excuse me.” A velvety voice speaks from behind him. When Yunho whirls around, he’s greeted by a tall woman, somewhere around his height, with chocolate skin and hair that flows straight down to her ankles. It’s split in half, one side colored a striking white and the other a jet black. Contrary to her hair, her eyes are the opposite, where her eye on the white-haired side is a hollow black, and the one on the black-haired side is an almost blinding white.

“Y-yes?”

“What is your name, child?”

Yunho’s skin is on fire. He swallows thickly, fingers shaking even more than before. Staring this woman in the eyes feels like staring death in the face, but for some reason, he feels comforted. “J-Jeong Yunho.”

“Yunho.” His name sounds like gold when she says it. “What a lovely name. Tell me, Yunho, is it your first time here?”

“Yes,” he answers, swallowing again. “There was a n-note at my school. On the bulletin board. It said to come here.”

The woman smiles, burgundy lips stretching across her cheeks. “Ah. I have Jongho to thank for that.”

Jongho? Yunho swears he’s heard the name before.

“You see, Yunho, it can be hard for people like us to find each other. I put an enchantment on that note so that only people like us can see it. Jongho suggested he put it up at his school, and, well, it seems as if he has brought you to us.”

“Jongho… I think I know that name,” Yunho says.

“He does claim to be quite popular at his school, and for good reason.” The woman chuckles. “He calls himself the stone giant, even though he is shorter than me… and you.” She laughs again, voice dripping like honey.

“You said… ‘people like us.’ What… do you mean by that?”

The woman blinks slowly. “You know very well what I mean, Yunho.” Her arresting eyes take him up and down as she begins a slow circle around him. “There is a reason you saw that note. You know that you are not like those at your school. Look around you, Yunho. What do you see?”

The answer is quite obvious. Yunho would open his mouth to speak, but under the woman’s fierce gaze, he finds himself unable to do much of anything. The layer beneath his skin is scratching at himself somehow. He doesn’t even know how that’s possible.

It’s as if something inside him is itching to come out.

“I see you just as you are, Yunho,” the woman says. “My child, I go by many, many names. But the patrons at this establishment often refer to me as the Goddess.”

The Goddess raises a pointed fingernail at him, stiletto sharp, coated in prismatic gemstones. “You have no reason to be afraid here. After all, I know you must have suffered every time you looked at yourself in the mirror.”

Yunho feels tears beginning to surface in his eyes. “I-I…”

“We see you, Yunho.”

 _We see you_ , a chorus of voices enunciates.

The Goddess gently cups Yunho’s cheek, her nails resting just above his temple.

His skin begins to sizzle.

And burn.

He opens his mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. His arms remain limp by his sides as some invisible force strips him of his coat, revealing him in nothing but a white t-shirt, bare arms and all. Every inch of his body stings as the Goddess looks at him with tender eyes.

_You have no reason to be afraid._

Yunho is pretty sure his tears have begun to fall, but there’s nothing he can utter, not when his body is rejecting everything he’s tried to do in the past. From his skin bursts his scales, rough patches in areas that Yunho never let them reach. Somewhere in the white noise ringing in his eardrums, Yunho can hear cheering.

The pain doesn’t stop even once the Goddess drops her hand from his cheek. He collapses to his knees, gasping for breath, when he notices webs in between the fingers of his bluish green scaled hands.

“Yunho,” the Goddess speaks again. “Stand.”

Yunho obeys easily, body acting on its own. “Here, we are proud beings,” she says, her black and white eyes fierce. “We do not hide. We stand together. Do you understand?”

Squeezing his fists, Yunho lets the unfamiliar feeling of the webs between his fingers sink in. “Y-yes.”

The Goddess smiles sympathetically, her gaze softening. “Yunho, this place is a sanctuary. As you can see, it runs much like a nightclub. You are free to roam, to interact with anybody you please. The only thing I do not permit is violence of any kind. If anybody gives you a hard time, which I doubt will happen, just think of me and I will come to you.”

“I…” Yunho’s brain is still short-circuiting with all this information seeping in at once. “Th-thank you.”

“Please, do make yourself at home.” The Goddess curtsies before her body seems to wisp away, just like sand, disappearing in particles before vanishing altogether. Yunho lets out a silent gasp, turning in each and every direction, but there isn’t a single trace left of her.

Blinking rapidly, Yunho nearly slaps himself in the face. But as he’s about to raise his palm to his cheek, he realizes that it’s yellow. Observing it from all angles, the hues of green and blue glisten even underneath the warm-colored lights. His nails have also somehow extended into claws the color of his palm, a dusty yellow.

Biting his lip, he quickly registers it as a mistake because he instantly tastes blood. Reaching a finger into his mouth, he pokes around to find that a handful of his teeth have also grown into razor sharp fangs.

He can’t even begin to imagine what his face looks like.

Ducking his head down, he worms his way through the throng of people (creatures? Things?) until he reaches a bar, illuminated dancing royal blues and electric violets. Panting, he sits himself at one of the stools where he finally looks up to see his reflection staring back at him a mirror above the selection of bottles.

His face, apart from a few splotches of scales, appears human.

He lets out a sigh of relief, but the moment of tranquility is cut short when he feels a hefty arm being thrown over his shoulder. “Yunho! My man!” a booming voice hollers, one that Yunho doesn’t believe he’s heard before.

He almost screams when he sees a man with rugged skin (literally rugged, like a fucking boulder) right next to his fucking face. “D-do I know you?” he exclaims.

“It’s me, Jongho! I mean, how could you not know me? I’m the one who got you in, duh!”

This… Jongho. Yunho can’t think of the face off the top of his head, and he certainly can’t think about it right now, not when this Jongho person looks like a literal walking rock. His skin has cracks and crevices just like a piece of earth would, colored all shades of gray and sand. His eyes are barely distinguishable, just two dots in the middle of his face.

“Fuckin’ hell, fine.” And just like that, the textured rock of Jongho’s face starts to crumble away into dust, landing on the floor below them. What’s left is the face of Choi Jongho, eleventh grade athlete, and just as the Goddess had said, there’s an obvious reason why he’s undefeated in strength-related athletics. “Recognize me now?”

“Uh… yeah.”

As opposed to the rocky face Yunho was met with at first, Jongho’s human face is nothing short of that of… well, a high schooler. He’s still got some baby fat to lose from his cheeks, and his smile spells out gums and sparkling white teeth. When Yunho glances down, however, his arms are still made of stone. “I’m sure the Goddess already told you, but I was the one who put that notice up. Pretty neat, right?”

“Kinda scared the hell out of me, but yeah, I guess,” Yunho mutters in response.

“Hey, seriously. We’re all like you, here. Trust me, you think I didn’t freak out when I turned fourteen and all of a sudden started crushing plates with my bare hands? Or when I’d step outside during winter and all of a sudden felt my knees locking up because I was turning to literal stone? Everyone here has had stuff like that happen.”

Yunho stares down at his now webbed fingers. “That’s pretty cool,” Jongho comments. “The scales. There are a few maritime people up on the roof if you want to go meet them.”

Maritime people?

“So… people who also have scales?”

“I mean, Seonghwa also has scales, but he’s not maritime. He’s more serpentine. Depends on the person, but yours definitely look more marine-like.” Jongho’s eyes flit over to the couch area, where serpent man and fox man are still clinging to each other. “Seonghwa’s the guy with the scales. Hongjoong’s his disgustingly cloying fox lover. They’re all over each other all the time, and while I get they’re not hurting anybody, it’s not necessarily a pleasant sight when Seonghwa starts shoving his split tongue down Hongjoong’s throat. _Literally_.”

Yunho makes a face. “Seriously,” Jongho says, “they should just migrate to one of the private rooms instead of taking up the lounge area with their horny antics.”

“Private rooms?”

Jongho snickers. “Yeah, they have those for when things get down and dirty.”

“Aren’t you underage?”

“Oh, I’m not the one doing the dirty stuff. Hell, I’m not even here to drink. I’m here because I belong here, with other people who are just like me. It’s fun!”

When Jongho is smiling enthusiastically and speaking directly from the heart, that he really belongs here, Yunho can’t help but smile too. “Really, though,” Jongho says. “I know it’s hard. Believe me, I was super nervous the first time I came here.”

“How did you find out about this place?”

“Funny story, actually,” Jongho says, rubbing his stony hands together. “I was… sixteen. I was walking home from school one day, and I could feel my legs beginning to turn to stone. At this point in my life, it happened whenever it got cold, and I didn’t know how to control it. When I started feeling it, I hid behind a tree at this abandoned park and my body just… froze. I couldn’t move. I could still see, feel, and hear everything, but my body became literal stone. And that’s when she found me.”

“The Goddess?”

Jongho nods with a reminiscent smile. “She was… a deer. As soon as her nose touched me, my body unfroze. I was still stone, though. And when she started walking off, I followed her, and I ended up here.”

“She’s a deer?”

“She can be whatever she wants. That’s why she’s the Goddess.” Jongho glances past Yunho. “She could be anyone in this club right now, and you wouldn’t even know.” Yunho follows Jongho’s eyes around, and surely enough, it’s still a crowd of unrecognizable faces that all blend together. There’s no sight of the black-and-white woman Yunho had seen. “She doesn’t have a default form. The one you just saw her in? That’s her favorite, but not her default. Like I said, she can be anything.”

Yunho nods in partial understanding.

“Something I can make for you, little one?” a rich voice says.

“Ah, Yeosang!” Jongho exclaims.

“Not you, you rascal,” Yeosang says.

Yunho turns back in the direction of a bar where a purple and blue-skinned man stands behind it. Swirls and designs of pink and green mottle the sides of his face and around his eyes, two large black pits that glow like onyxes under this light. His ears are pointed just above his head, and two glowing antennae with bulbous ends jut out from the sides of his widow’s peak.

“Hey, you know I don’t drink!” Jongho argues, pouting.

Yeosang shrugs. “Then why did you answer for the person I asked?”

“I… well, fine. Yunho, would you like something to drink?”

“I don’t… drink. I’m not legal to,” Yunho says.

Yeosang chuckles. “It doesn’t have to be alcoholic, you know. Besides, what we offer down here isn’t what’s offered up there.” He points a glowing finger upward.

“Then what is offered down here?” Yunho questions.

“Would you like to try for yourself?” Yeosang asks with several winks of his onyx-like eyes.

Jongho nods excitedly when Yunho looks at him hesitantly. “Just pineapple juice for me!” he calls, but Yeosang already has his back turned on the pair.

From his hands emit soft yellow glows, and two glasses move in the direction of his palms. Yunho watches slack jawed as bottles of various liquids open at the flick of a wrist or the subtle point of a finger. With Yeosang’s back still turned, two glasses slide in their direction, a glass of regular-looking pineapple juice for Jongho, and a martini glass of some lustrous blue liquid for Yunho.

“What… is this?” Yunho asks, gingerly picking up the glass.

“Try it,” Yeosang says.

Feeling only slightly pressured, Yunho raises the full glass to his lips where he’s met with a burst of fruity flavors that disperse over all of his taste buds at once. Somehow, he’s able to taste every fruit he’s ever tasted separately and together at the same time, and he doesn’t even know how that’s possible. It slithers down his throat coolly, leaving a refreshing, minty aftertaste. “So?” Yeosang’s left antenna twitches.

“It’s good,” Yunho says, amazed. “Holy shit. What’s in it?”

“Magic,” Yeosang answers with another wink. Yunho doesn’t even question it.

“Yeosang!” another rough voice similar to Jongho’s bellows. “Moonshine, please!”

“At least you said please this time,” Yeosang replies with a laugh as he turns away.

Yunho swivels his chair in the direction of the voice, where a lanky man with piercing yellow eyes plops himself down in the stool next to him. “So, the new guy!” He grins, a mouthful of monstrous teeth poking through. His features remind Yunho much of Hongjoong’s, where there are two animalistic ears where human ones would be, but his are a shining silver instead of orange. The tips of them are black, as is the hair lining hands. Surprisingly, the rest of his face is completely smooth.

“That’s Mingi,” Jongho leans in and whispers. “He’s got this whole wolf thing going on, but if he were to walk around in his full form, he would knock the place down, probably.”

“You’ve seen it before?”

“Only pictures. It’s insane. He gets huge. Trust me, this form he’s in, it’s like… only twenty percent of what he actually looks like.”

“You know, I can hear you,” Mingi says with a roll of his yellow eyes. “Stop exaggerating, Jongho. Look, it’s Yunho, right?” Yunho nods. “My form doesn’t get much more exciting than this. The most that happens is that my jaw juts out and my nose and face get all wrinkly and hairy. I do not turn into some beast man that can all of a sudden tear down a ceiling.”

Jongho crosses his arms and frowns. “Fine.”

Yunho eyes Mingi once again. “So you’re… a werewolf?”

Jongho snorts and Mingi rolls his eyes again. “That’s a human coined term, you know. We aren’t really called anything, here. We’re just us.”

“We who?” Yunho asks.

“Everyone here,” Mingi says. “For example, Yeosang isn’t a fairy. Jongho isn’t a golem or whatever humans call stone people. Wooyoung isn’t a merman, Hongjoong isn’t a kitsune.”

“Then what are we?”

Suddenly, the pulsing lights and music switch off, and the crowd erupts in a collective groan that is quickly silenced by a soothing voice.

_“My children.”_

The groans are quick to become cheers instead. The Goddess’s voice resonates everywhere, off the walls, off the ceiling. In pitch blackness, under the glow of magic, everything has come to a standstill at the harmonious voice of the Goddess.

_“Tonight, we celebrate the arrival of newcomer Jeong Yunho.”_

The crowd cheers and applauds, and Yunho feels two sturdy hands shaking his shoulders. The lights gradually turn back on, though the music remains off. Heads of all shapes, sizes, and forms turn in Yunho’s direction as if they _know._

_“And because we are celebrating, I would like to remind everybody here of some very important things.”_

An ominous hush spreads across the crowd. As Yunho glances around, he notices that everybody is looking up, but even when he does, there are no signs of the Goddess.

_“Here, we are safe. We are together. We do not hide. We stand as one. Where you may feel as if you do not belong out there, you will always belong in here.”_

Yunho’s skin, his scales, tingle.

_“To people above ground, we are known as many things. We have been assigned names, titles, that we ourselves do not own. Names and titles that we do not claim, because we will not be reduced to such dehumanizing monikers. We are human.”_

“Hear hear!” Jongho shouts, causing the crowd to roar in unison.

 _“Such titles, we have become quite familiar with. Slurs that are thrown our way wherever we go, that follow us whenever we go to sleep. When you open that fairytale book, you see a vampire, a werewolf, a witch, a fairy, an ogre, an elf, all of these supernatural beings that people give titles to just because they are_ different _.”_

The crowd hollers in assent.

_“While those names are not slurs or particularly harmful, they put us in a box. We are so much more than our differences and distinct characteristics. Everyone in this establishment is human. I want all of you to know that.”_

Yunho frowns and glances down at his scaled hands.

 _”We are human, and we are different. We have abilities and features that no ordinary person does. But no matter your skin color, the texture of it, the size or shape or form of your body, the people you love, or the way you present yourself, you are_ here _. And you_ belong _here.”_

Jongho’s hooting is especially loud since it’s right next to Yunho’s ears, but Yunho finds himself smiling.

_“The only label you should have is the one you give yourself, if any. How you introduce yourself is who you are, not who or what anybody else says you are. However… if there is something you must call yourself, an overarching term to encapsulate all of the beauty and uniqueness I see in this club tonight…”_

A glossy sheen appears over the blue lights. When Yunho blinks, he feels water.

_“…we are the Unnamed. Remember us.”_

There are a few seconds of weighty silence before the mass of beauty and extraordinary characters erupts in triumphant cheers and applause. Somewhere in the cacophonous noise, Yunho hears glasses breaking, the smacking of lips, and tearful sobs.

 _“Remember us!”_ The Goddess’s voice rings one last time before a gust of wind blows over the crowd, ruffling hair or lack of it.

Even as the music turns back on, the crowd continues to cheer on their Goddess.

Yunho finally understands why.

☾

Yunho has just finished the single glass of blue liquid when an unfamiliar face approaches him.

“May I sit?” the man asks. Upon first inspection, his face is entirely human. No animalistic features, no glowing eyes or hair or scales… until Yunho sees his hands and arms.

They remind him of his own.

“Y-yeah,” Yunho says, and the man sits at the stool to his right.

“You’re Yunho, right? The new one everyone’s raving about.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Yunho laughs awkwardly.

It’s then that Yunho notices the scales on this man’s neck, specks of glittering blue and pink, much like Yeosang’s skin. The scales on his hands and arms are the same as well. “It’s nice to meet you, Yunho. I’m San.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

“What do you think of this place so far?” San asks as a glass lands right in front of him, some glowing purple concoction. Yunho glances over to see Yeosang at the other end of the bar. He chuckles.

“I… I really like it. I mean, it’s definitely overwhelming and kind of reality-crushing, but like the Goddess said… it’s like I belong here.”

“Because you’re _meant_ to belong here,” San says reinforcingly.

San is brave, Yunho realizes, as he rests his scaly hand right over Yunho’s, blue and green meeting blue and pink. Yunho, too entranced by this stranger’s kindness and overwhelmingly genial aura, doesn’t pull away. He merely stares at their hands.

They’re alike.

Big, fish-like scales that are rough to the touch, that gleam their own colors under any colored light. Claws and webbed fingers.

“The Goddess isn’t called the Goddess for no reason,” San says. “And I love the name she’s given us. The Unnamed. It’s kind of paradoxical, you know? How we are called the Unnamed, yet by naming ourselves the Unnamed, we have a name.” He giggles, slurping the first sip of his drink from the straw. “But I think that’s the beauty in it.”

“There’s beauty in everything,” Yunho says completely unprovoked, like his brain doesn’t know what it’s doing. He wonders if it was the drink.

San hums with a considerate nod of the head. “You know, Yunho… there are a lot of people like us out there. They just haven’t found their place yet.”

“How are we even… you know, how are we even like this? How do you and I have scales? How does Jongho have stone for skin, or how does Mingi have wolf-like features? My parents are normal… I think.”

San chuckles. “Yunho, everything is complicated when you have so much that’s different from what’s perceived to be normal. From what the Goddess told me, sometimes, an Unnamed is born just as they are. Like, my parents? Complete humans. No scales. And I know, because I’ve seen them in pools and they don’t scale over like I do.”

“Y-yeah… same.” Yunho stares at their scales once more.

“So sometimes, it just _happens._ Like, I guess the stars align and out pops an Unnamed. But it’s terrifying, growing up when you feel like there’s something wrong with you. And trust me, when I’m out there, walking around in broad daylight knowing that my skin will grow scales if it touches water, it’s still so goddamn terrifying. But I know my place, I know my _name_ , I know that I _belong_ somewhere, and that somewhere is here.” San holds his arms out, all blue and pink in scaly glory. “This is where I belong. And you belong here too.”

The water is starting to appear again.

San smiles warmly and stands up, offering his blue-pink hand out to him. “Come on, I want to show you something.”

Yunho follows.

With interlaced fingers, San guides Yunho out of the crowd and into an elevator. Crimson light pours from the small vent at the top as the ride takes its course, ascending who knows how many floors.

When Yunho thinks about it, how the hell is this place even structured?

After what seems like two mintues of elevator travel, a bell finally dings and the doors slide open to a vast starlit sky and freezing cold air. San steps out first. “Come on, it’s safe, I promise.”

Yunho takes his hand again, where San pulls him to a massive pool built into the tiled floor of what Yunho thinks is a rooftop. It must be one of the buildings surrounding the oddly placed convenience store. The pool barely stirs with the breeze. Colors beneath the water’s surface alternate just like the ones back in the club, mainly cerulean and an array of neon colors.

San strips his shirt to reveal more blue and pink scales littering his back. Yunho panics when he sees San going for his pants _and_ his boxers, quickly averting his eyes. “Hey,” San says, catching his attention again. When he peeks past his webbed fingers, San is already in the pool. “Come on.”

“I… I don’t…”

“You don’t have to get naked like I did.” San chuckles.

Yunho steps closer to the pool, noticing that San’s scales have begun to further creep up his neck, and some have even begun sprouting on his face. His lips turn a vibrant shade of pink. “Come on.”

In that moment, when San holds his hand out of the water for Yunho to take, Yunho lets go of all his inhibitions and tugs his shirt off, even going for his jeans and underwear just like San had, letting the adrenaline of the situation take over because _there’s someone just like him_ waiting for him, and if San can be brave, so can he.

Yunho can’t remember the last time he’s been submerged in water. He learned to swim at a young age, but had never been swimming ever since he discovered his scales.

When he’s finally in the water, his skin is freezing and burning at the same time.

“I know it hurts,” San says, holding onto Yunho’s shoulders. “But trust me. It’ll feel so, so good once you’re finally able to _let go._ ”

Yunho’s chest hurts with how rapidly he’s breathing as his skin effloresces into the scales he was always meant to show. All the while, San watches with pride as his eyes blow black, wide and onyx-like, just like Yeosang’s. “You got this, Yunho!” he cheers, head twitching as two fanlike fins burst from the sides of his neck, just below his head.

“Holy shit, San!” Yunho exclaims, wincing as he feels a sharp pressure stabbing the center of his back. “F-fucking Christ, this hurts!”

“Let it!” San yells. “Come on!”

And with that, San’s head disappears beneath the water.

Still grimacing from the pins and needles pricking his skin, Yunho takes a deep breath and dives under, only to soon realize he didn’t need to.

He’s breathing perfectly fine.

When he sees San again, his hair is gone, having been replaced with a crown of spiky scales that match the color of his lips. Two barbed fins fan out from his neck, his feet having turned just as webbed as his hands. “Come on,” he urges, voice perfectly clear even underwater.

Yunho follows, his own two webbed feet easily propelling him through the water’s resistance. The colors around him undulate with the ebb and flow of the water as he descends further down, and even then, it doesn’t seem to get any darker.

In fact, it only seems to get brighter, and it becomes clear as to why.

“Hey, Sannie!” a gleeful voice chirps.

The water around them whirls as a man with a giant, luminous tail appears before them. Unlike them, his face remains mostly human, apart from a few quills and scales along his neck. His forearms are lined with razor-edged fins that glisten just as much as his tail.

“Yunho, meet Wooyoung,” San says proudly, swimming next to him.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Wooyoung says, extending his hand for Yunho to take.

Still attempting to abandon his inhibitions, Yunho takes his hand and tries to ignore the fact that it’s a perfectly human-looking hand.

“Welcome to the underwater section of this club!” Wooyoung announces, gesturing for Yunho and San to follow him. “Not gonna lie, it’s less exciting than back at the actual club since… we can’t really dance or drink underwater, but it’s good to be able to exercise your true form now and again.”

“True form?” Yunho questions.

“What you’re in right now, which is _stunning_ , by the way. That dorsal fin? Fucking _sexy_.”

“Aha, Wooyoung, you’re so funny and have no filter whatsoever!” San laughs madly, punching Wooyoung on the shoulder in what appears to be a playful manner.

“Dorsal fin?” Yunho cranes his neck in every direction in an attempt to view this ‘dorsal fin,’ but no matter how he moves his head or body (he even does a fucking backflip), he doesn’t even catch a glimpse.

“It’s really cool,” San says. He points at the fins on his neck. “It looks kinda like this, just bigger. Like, it covers your whole spine.”

“Fuck, really?”

San nods. “That’s why it hurts to be in your true form for the first couple times. Your body has to get used to it having parts that it’s not used to having.”

“My face… what does my face look like?” Yunho asks.

“Just as gorgeous as your ‘normal’ one.” San smiles, with his perfectly shaped, hot pink lips.

Yunho doesn’t know what color a blush would be with his current skin tone, but he feels like he’s definitely blushing right now.

“I get that you probably don’t want to go out and swim under ‘normal’ circumstances. Which is why, I reiterate, you belong here. You can be who you are here without boundaries or restrictions. Free of judgement, ridicule, blame, and discrimination.” Wooyoung nods in agreement at San’s words.

With mischievous grins, San and Wooyoung swim around Yunho’s body, until Yunho takes it upon himself to launch himself upwards. “Hey!” San exclaims. “Get back here!”

“Over my dead dorsal fin!” Yunho quips back, laughing.

Swimming has never been this easy.

From what he remembers, he’d been a keen learner when it came to swimming. Able to float at the age of three, Yunho surpassed his parents’ expectations. By four, he was already freestyling, and by six, he was doing the butterfly stroke without even realizing it.

It’s all coming back to him. Zooming through the water, feeling it course through his lungs just like the cleanest burst of air, he feels _home._

When he breeches the surface, he breathes in air just as welcomingly, smiling and laughing as the tears in his eyes become one with the water surrounding him.

It’s not long before San and Wooyoung resurface too, creating two massive splashes on either side of him.

“You little rascal!” San tackles Yunho back into the water but doesn’t force him down. Instead, he simple holds his arms around him and spins him around in some sort of water tango that makes him only slightly dizzy.

When San releases him, they’re all smiling, glistening beneath the stars and above the water’s bluish crystalline glow.

☾

Yunho doesn’t remain in his true form for long, as his webbed feet are definitely not made to walk on land, but when he finally looks at himself in the elevator’s mirror, he gasps.

His eyes are a striking yellow, pupils mere black slits.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters to himself.

“What?” San questions. His hair has begun to reappear.

“My eyes.”

“What about them?”

“They’re… fuck.” He closes them tight and sinks to the floor.

“Hey, Yunho,” San says, crouching down beside him with Wooyoung following suit. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re… they’re hideous,” Yunho whimpers, his yellow palms digging into them. “They’re so _ugly_. I can’t… I can’t—”

“What are you saying, Yunho?” Wooyoung asks. There’s a hand on his scaly shoulder, though he can’t tell who it belongs to. “They’re cool.”

“They’re _beautiful_ ,” San adds. There’s another hand.

“That too.” Wooyoung giggles.

Yunho raises his head slowly, removing his hands from his eyes. They’re still clawed, still webbed, reminding him that _this_ is what he is. “Open your eyes, Yunho,” San says.

Reluctantly, painfully, he does.

“Look at me. Look at us.” San and Wooyoung are staring straight into those horrendous yellow eyes of his, appearing completely unfazed. “They’re not ugly or hideous or anything negative you can come up with. Do you hear me?”

Yunho gulps and nods.

“I will say this time and time again. You _belong_ here. Every single part of you is beautiful.” San raises his hands to Yunho’s face, cupping both sides of his jaw. Even looking at the blue and pink of his scales, Yunho finds himself wishing that his were just as majestic-looking.

“I-I just… want to be normal,” Yunho hiccups through the tears.

“You _are_ normal, Yunho.” San smiles sadly, his thumb swiping up to collect Yunho’s tears. “Even if you aren’t, who the hell _cares_? Certainly nobody here. People here don’t give a _shit._ You could have the craziest features you can think of and people will see you as beautiful because you _are._ You are _beautiful_ , Yunho. And I will tell you that over and over again until you believe it.”

Yunho blinks, eyes briefly landing on Wooyoung’s. “What he said.”

Yunho can’t help but chuckle.

“Seriously, Yunho,” San says, face dangerously close. “I mean every word I say. You. Are. Beautiful.”

Yunho finds himself grabbing onto San’s wrists and holding his hands into place. The clawed hands that are holding him so tenderly. The black eyes that appear soulless but hold so much kindness. In the reflection of San’s pupils, Yunho sees himself.

And San is beautiful.

“Yunho.” San draws his face nearer. “Can I kiss you?”

With a nervous gulp and a hitch in his chest, Yunho nods ever so slightly, and San delicately presses his neon pink lips to his.

Everything beneath Yunho’s eyelids burst with color. Wet from the water, San’s lips are plush and soft and move so kindly, _just like him_ , that when he pulls away, Yunho wants more.

Wooyoung has his arms around San’s front and is watching admiringly. “Cute,” he says, pressing a kiss to San’s temple. “You two are so cute.”

“Are you two…?” Yunho questions.

Wooyoung shrugs his prismatic-scaled shoulders. “When we’re here, we’re lovers,” he says, turning San’s head to kiss him too. “But there’s always, _always_ love to share.”

☾

Jongho is there to greet them once the elevator opens. “Finally! Now come on guys, let’s dance!”

Without any warning, the three of them are ushered out by rocky and furry fists as Jongho and Mingi haul them out to the center of the dance floor.

San, evidently familiar with such antics, is the first to make a move by grabbing both of Wooyoung’s hands and twirling him around before pulling him in for a kiss. He kisses Wooyoung with much more passion, probably because they _know_ each other, and not just because they both have scales.

But it’s not long before San whirls him in too, laughing as he attempts to spin Yunho, who’s got quite a bit of height on him.

“Cute, our lovebird rivals have emerged from the depths,” a sultry voice calls out from behind Yunho as a warmth approaches.

When he turns around, he sees Hongjoong and Seonghwa approaching. Up close, Yunho can see the finer details of their faces. Seonghwa’s scales are much smaller and closer together than his own, though his yellow eyes are too eerily similar to his. His shaggy jet black locks dangle right over his forehead, eyebrows near invisible under the scales.

Hongjoong is quite the contrast, with his radiant white hair and glaring red eyes. Twin tails protrude from behind him, white as his hair with tips orange like his ears.

“Come on, there’s no rivalry here,” San says in pout.

“Jussst messsing with you,” Seonghwa hisses, his split tongue poking through his lips with each enunciation. “You two are cute. But we’re cuter, sssorry.”

“What happened to no rivalry?” Jongho quips, throwing his rock hard arms around Seonghwa and San’s shoulders. “Come on, all of y’all are cute. Cut the jabbering and stick to dancing, ‘kay?”

“You sure Yeosang didn’t cook you up something?” Hongjoong purrs.

“Nope, just high on life and the company of awesome people! Come on lovebirds, dance!”

And so, they do.

Under rainbow lights, to beats that Yunho feels resonating in his chest, he dances until his skin is covered in sweat, like the water he belongs in. He sees all of their smiles, fangs and yellow teeth and the beauty in all of them, their heads and hair or lack thereof bobbing to the energetic music. The music they’re playing is what they play up there, Yunho realizes. He’s heard these songs before. Yet here he is, below ground, surrounded by tails and fur and scales and claws and fangs, and he realizes something.

He belongs here just as much as he does there.

They all share the same music. The same ground. The same world. They’re all living, breathing creatures, and whether they’re human or not, Yunho finds himself in their world, _his_ world.

His name is Jeong Yunho. And he is an Unnamed.

Engrave it on the maps, write it down on every page of every book in existence. Carve it into the trunks of trees, scream it into the void of the starless skies. He has a name. He is an Unnamed.

“Yunho,” San calls out over the blaring music.

Blinded by pulsating lights, Yunho lets San find him.

“How are you feeling?” San asks him.

Yunho looks at him and finds himself not caring what color his eyes are.

“I’m… I belong.”

San stares at him with loving eyes before standing up on his tip toes to kiss him.

“You do. You really, really do. And you’re so beautiful.”

☾

_Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful._

San and Wooyoung’s voices echo in his eardrums as the bluish lights of the room rain down on him. They’re kissing him in ways he’s never been kissed, touching him in ways he’s never been touched. Stripped of his clothes, his scales are on full display, and they kiss over them too, murmuring words of _beautiful_ into his skin, blue, green, and tan alike.

“Yunho,” San whispers into his skin, “have you done anything like this before?”

Yunho shakes his head, smiling as he hears Wooyoung giggle. “Then let us take care of you, okay? Would you like us to do that for you?” San asks.

“God, _yes_ ,” Yunho groans, inhaling deeply as their lips travel further down his chest.

“So goddamn _gorgeous_ ,” Wooyoung practically growls, latching his lips onto one of Yunho’s nipples as San’s hand wraps around his cock. “If only you saw yourself how we see you, Yunho. You’d be blinded by your beauty.”

Yunho tilts his head back, eyes screwing shut as Wooyoung’s tongue makes its way back up to his neck and circles the scales, tracing the indents. His body relaxes, practically melts onto the velvet mattress and satin sheets.

_Relax your muscles. Loosen your jaw. Think about how beautiful you are._

As Wooyoung’s lips meet Yunho’s, San’s meet his cock, sucking the tip into his mouth before engulfing half of it with an enthusiastic slurp. Wooyoung swallows his moans and licks into his mouth, driving away any sort of protest or inhibition Yunho has left in him.

_Love._

_Here, we are lovers._

“Beautiful.” Wooyoung presses the word into his mouth, into his skin, until Yunho finds himself repeating it, even as Wooyoung descends down his body to meet San at his cock.

Being a complete virgin, having two men hungrily licking at his cock already has him close, not to mention the sheer passion that the two share is enough to make him want to come already. Their tongues move in sync and alternation, working Yunho’s cock with expertise and precision, until he’s twitching and leaking endlessly, ready to come between their mouths.

“Y-you guys, I—”

San swallows him whole as Wooyoung’s mouth attaches itself to his balls, and he’s done for. A guttural moan is torn from his throat as he comes directly into San’s mouth. “F-fuck, wait—”

San pulls off with a pop, his wet lips glistening under the blue before meeting Wooyoung’s, and Yunho watches in awe as their tongues mingle with each other, sharing Yunho’s come between them before finally uniting. Wooyoung is quick to climb on top of San, their mouths not once leaving each other, as their hands roam their bodies in familiar ways, like they’ve explored all that’s there to explore.

“Do you want to watch us, Yunho?” San asks as Wooyoung’s hands travel down to his thighs.

Yunho nods shyly before San sits up to kiss him again. “Cute.”

He’s the one to push Wooyoung down this time, kissing down his chest until his head disappears between his thighs. “Watch us, darling,” San coos before he dives in, flattening his tongue against Wooyoung’s rim.

Yunho watches attentively as San eats Wooyoung out. Wooyoung squirms at San’s fingers caressing his sides, tongue feverishly lapping at his hole. “Yunho,” Wooyoung says, his name rolling off the tongue like saccharine sweetness, “touch me.”

And since Yunho is in no position to deny him, he does.

Yunho only continues to watch in amazement as San pushes inside, burying his cock deep within his lover. Wooyoung’s hands fly up above his head, relinquishing all control as he lets San rock into him.

“So beautiful, both of you,” San moans, reaching over to grab one of Yunho’s wrists. “Yunho, fuck me.”

“I don’t… know how.”

“It’s okay,” San says.

So he guides him.

He sucks on his fingers until they’re coated with saliva (“They’re so long,” he comments), and then guides them down to his entrance while still buried to the hilt in Wooyoung. Yunho’s cock jumps as soon as he feels how tight San is around his finger, only imagining what it would be like around his dick.

“Does it hurt?” Yunho asks him.

“Our bodies are strong,” San tells him. “We can handle a lot more than the average human. I’m perfectly fine, so don’t worry.”

Believing his words, believing in _him_ , Yunho nods with determination and adds another finger, cock positioned just beside his fingers as San begins to rock his hips again.

When Yunho is finally inside him, his worlds collide.

He belongs.

With them, _here,_ there, _everywhere._ Yunho _belongs._

“Fuck, Yunho! S-so big…” San moans, falling forward.

Yunho falls with him, hands planting themselves on either sides of their bodies before snapping his hips forward, sending both San and Wooyoung into a simultaneous moan of pleasure. “Y-yes, Yunho, just like that…”

Yunho watches them from above, how their lips collide with such passion, such _love_ , that it makes his heart yearn for something like that. That yearning, however, lasts for a split second, because as if San has read his mind, he sits up, and reaches behind Yunho’s head to pull him in. It’s far from a proper kiss, but it’s something, and it holds just as much fervor.

San is the first to come undone, practically screaming Yunho’s name as he comes inside Wooyoung, body smushed between the two. Yunho can feel the way he tightens around him with each pulse of his cock, squeezing until he reaches his own orgasm, pulling out and coming in spurts along San’s back.

(Come to find out Wooyoung had actually been the first to come, sandwiched between San and the sheets, and now whoever does the laundry in this place has to deal with that whole mess.)

In a colorful mess of limbs and sweat and scales, Yunho basks in the feeling of belonging.

Under a light that harmonizes with the tones of his scales, the things that _don’t necessarily_ make him who he is, or what he is, Yunho shuts his eyes, not caring what color they are, and closes his arms around San and Wooyoung.

_“She can be whatever she wants. That’s why she’s the Goddess.”_

Somewhere in Yunho’s mind, he wonders if he could be the same.

Because really and truly, whether he is a human, a monster, a creature, a freak, _whatever_ name that could possibly be thrown his way, by his hand or another’s, he knows very well now that there is only one name that encompasses what, and who, he is.

His name is Jeong Yunho, and he is an Unnamed.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/galaxysangs)


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